I’m a bit of a sports fan, and all, but :(
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Theoretically Speaking by Mike Fowler
I'll use this forum to post my ideas about work I'm doing, work I've read, or things that pop into my head; hopefully to raise discussion and help me learn more about this crazy little thing called science.
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When comics stop being funny
- Date:
- Tuesday, 21 Oct ober 2008 - 09:44 UTC
Last updated: Tuesday, 21 Oct 2008 - 09:44 UTC
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Comments
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I would imagine that the football coach salary isn’t an average salary of all football coaches. Most probably work for free or peanuts.
I have a feeling that salaries are, in part, weighted by risk. Football coaches get paid a lot, but a couple of bad results, and they’re out.
Judging by the caption, these are specifically football coaches (the trainers, not the buses) that are employed by US doctoral-granting universities, which have a football team in Div 1 (presumably of the College league system).
And Henry, the same risk applies to post-docs, without the same financial pillow to catch us when we fall.
It is hard to distinguish some of the numbers, but at a rough approximation it seems as if a university president earns about three times more than a tenured professor, and a football coach earns about three times more than a university president – but a tenured professor earns five times more than a graduate student.
And Henry, the same risk applies to post-docs, without the same financial pillow to catch us when we fall.
Postdocs work on a contract, and can’t simply be told to walk if they get two messed-up westerns in a row …. can they?
They can in Finland. I’ve worked without a contract for more than a year before I got a personal grant.
I imagine the football coaches also work on fixed term contracts. And they are probably offered severance (shut yer mooth) payments if they get given the heave-ho before the contract is fulfilled. But no, a contracted Post-doc can’t get shunted before the end of the contract, unless they do something really silly.
We in the US have our priorities. If a football coach develops a winning program, he is justly rewarded with celebrity, including TV appearances, endorsements, etc. If he loses, though, he must slink away in disgrace with whatever portion of his million dollar salary he’s somehow managed to save. I suspect the difference between successful and unsuccessful grad students / post-docs is the quality of the pizza they eat in the lab. But then, few post-docs are capable of developing a high-powered passing game, either. And nothing serves humanity as well as that.
In the UK, some football coach just got sacked from Spurs and the club hired a new coach. The team won their first match for ages. The new coach was previously coach for Plymouth. He’s returning there in a week or something to receive “the freedom of the city”, even though he has now abandoned the club for Spurs.
Anyway, nobody can tell the Spurs joke any more, which is “what is the difference between Spurs and a samosa?”. The answer is that a samosa has more points.
If it’s any consolation, the bar for an average author’s income probably wouldn’t even be visible on the scale of that chart. AND they have even more insecure jobs than football coaches.